14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has confirmed to investors that the company wants to start releasing downloadable content for some of its games, in order to keep them popular among existent owners and attract new customers.
While Sony and Microsoft have embraced the practice of downloadable content for their video games, Nintendo hasn’t been so keen on deploying add-ons for its experiences.
With the recent 3DS and the upcoming Wii U, Nintendo hopes to finally start its own DLC strategy, as Iwata explained to investors just how this might help keep the company’s games popular.
“We will be able to do various things in the field of digital business,” Iwata said about the DLC strategy. “Up until now, once consumers who had bought a game got tired of it, they would never play it and it would never draw public attention again. Even if the game had the sales potential to other new consumers, they rarely actually bought it because the consumers who already had bought it would never talk about it again and the game would be considered an old one.”
In order to prevent such an issue as the one highlighted above, Iwata believes that the online networks could finally be used to release DLC, not just downloadable games or demos.
"Having said that, what if we could provide add-on content through the network? As I referred to before, for example, this is the idea of supplying new stages to Super Mario users who want to play the game more but have completed the game and lost interest in the existing stages. This will not only give us new profits but will lengthen the life of a product, in that it will never be out of fashion and can keep attracting public attention as long as many people play it."
Nintendo recently added support for DLC to the 3DS handheld platform, as developers and publishers can now deploy add-ons through the online eShop. The first game to take advantage of this system will be the upcoming Fire Emblem RPG.
Given these statements, you can expect the Japanese company itself to probably deploy some fresh levels for Super Mario 3D Land or new tracks for Mario Kart 7 in the near future.